When SMART is not smart enough


SMART – We have heard this many times in management presentations and/or have been advised that our goals should adhere to this standard.

So what is SMART goal –

S  – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Relevant

T – Time-bound

Also, the goals should answer these questions (W’s) –

*Who:      Who is involved?

*What:     What do I want to accomplish?

*Where:    Identify a location.

*When:     Establish a time frame.

*Which:    Identify requirements and constraints.

*Why:      Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

Looks good. Now look a the Supper Committee that was formed in US to cut the deficit and analysis from HBR blog post what happened.

Takeaways –

    • Common goal + separate agendas = failure
    • Beware of Silos
    • Manage SMART goals by checking for agenda conflict and changing incentives.

The Super Committee’s Two Failures
Morten T. Hansen
Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:54:20 GMT

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Fire All the Managers–Good Podcast


Democratization of the management. Good example of a company doing it.

An interview with Gary Hamel, director of the Management Innovation eXchange and author of the HBR article First, Let’s Fire All the Managers.

Download this podcast

Fire All the Managers
HBR IdeaCast
Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:51:37 GMT

3 Keys to Agile Results–Interesting Blog Post


Keeping focus in a Agile Teams is of great significances for success of the project. These three points can definitely help. I particularly love “Monday Vision, Daily Wins, Friday Reflection”….

 

Agile Results is the name of the system I talk about in Getting Results the Agile Way.   It’s a simple time management system for meaningful results.  The focus is on meaningful results, not doing more things.  There are three keys to the Agile Results system:

  1. The Rule of Three
  2. Monday Vision, Daily Wins, Friday Reflection
  3. Hot Spots

The Rule of 3
The Rule of 3 helps you avoid getting overwhelmed.  It’s also a guideline that helps you prioritize and scope. Rather than bite off more than you can chew, you bite off three meaningful things. You can use The Rule of 3 at different levels by picking three wins for the day, three wins for the week, three wins for the month, and three wins for the year. This helps you see the forest for the trees since your three wins for the year are at a higher level than your three wins for the month, and your three wins for the week are at a higher level than your three wins for the day.  You can easily zoom in and out to help balance your perspective on what’s important, for the short term and the longer term.

Monday Vision, Daily Wins, Friday Reflection
Monday Vision, Daily Wins, Friday Reflection is a weekly results pattern.  This is a simple “time-based” pattern. Each week is a fresh start. On Mondays, you think about three wins you would like for the week.  Each day you identify three wins you would like for the day. On Fridays, you reflect on lessons learned; you ask yourself, “What three things are going well, and what three things need improvement?”  This weekly results pattern helps you build momentum.

Hot Spots
Hot Spots are a way to heat map your life.  They help you map out your results by identifying “what’s hot?.” Hot Spots become both your levers and your lens to help you identify and focus on what’s important in your life. They can represent areas of pain or opportunity. You can use Hot Spots as your main dashboard.  You can organize your Hot Spots by work, personal, and the “big picture” of your life. At a glance, you should be able to quickly see the balls you are juggling and what’s on your plate. To find your Hot Spots, simply make a list of the key things that need your time and energy. Then for each of these key things, create—a simple list, a “tickler list” that answers the question, “What do you want to accomplish?” Once you know the wins you want to achieve in your Hot Spots, you have the ultimate map for your meaningful results.

You can use Agile Results for work or home or anywhere you need to improve your results in life. Agile Results is compatible with, and can enhance the results of, any productivity system or time management you already use.  That’s because the foundation of the Agile Results platform is a core set of principles, patterns, and practices for getting results.

The simplest way to get started with Agile Results is to read Getting Started with Agile Results, and take the 30 Day Boot Camp for Getting Results.

3 Keys to Agile Results
JD Meier
Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:23:31 GMT

Idolize Bill Gates, Not Steve Jobs


Good Article….

Apple is undoubtedly the gold standard of today’s tech world. In fact, it’s probably the gold standard of American industry at the moment. Its innovative design, user interface, and ecosystem make it a titan in any category it enters. And it’s clear that Steve Jobs was the reason Apple rose to its current heights from the brink of bankruptcy. In the wake of his death, HBR espoused his greatness — something I’ve done as well. And he was great. Steve Jobs has likely been our generation’s most important leader in the world of business. But Steve Jobs is not the most important leader from the world of business. While Jobs should be who MBAs and industrial designers try to emulate, I’m not sure he’s who we should idolize. That respect should be bestowed on someone we talk less and less about, Bill Gates.

Both Jobs and Gates had immeasurable impacts on the world. Apple ushered in the era of personal computing in many respects. Microsoft’s platform made it possible for a generation of computer scientists to learn and flourish. Apple seems to have perfected the art of delivering fantastic consumer products. Microsoft has worked diligently to make the enterprise more and more efficient. Regardless of which camp you fall in today, it’s impossible to deny each corporation’s contribution. Jobs and Gates each deeply respected each other’s contributions.

But at the end of his life, Steve Jobs worried about Apple, Inc. Walter Isaacson quoted the wizard of Cupertino saying, “Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands. But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed. I hope I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple.” At the end of his life, Jobs saw his legacy as Apple.

Bill Gates stepped away from Microsoft in 2006 and, despite the company’s growing troubles in the face of the mobile disruption, has devoted his genius to solving the world’s biggest problems, despite the fact that solving those problems doesn’t create profit or fame.* Gates committed his talents to eliminating diseases, increasing development standards, and generally fighting inequality.

Since 1994, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation amassed an endowment of over $31 billion in funds to fight the world’s most difficult issues. But it hasn’t merely accumulated funds, the foundation has already given away over $25 billion. Those aren’t trivial numbers. In seventeen years, the foundation has raised and given away more than one-tenth of Apple’s extraordinary market capitalization. While the developed world takes things like clean water, basic healthcare, and the availability of food for granted — there are billions of human beings that don’t have such fundamental resources.

Ghandi famously said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I don’t doubt that, in recent years, both Gates and Jobs did just that. Jobs made the world more beautiful and the billion of us with resources loved him for it. Gates is making the world ideal, and the billions of us with no voice will be forever impacted.

Yesterday, I read a note Gates wrote to members of the Harvard community. It speaks for itself:

I hope you will reflect on what you’ve done with your talent and energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you work to address the world’s deepest inequities, on how well you treat people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

Those are not the words of a leader of business. Those are the words of a leader of people. Those are the words of an idol.

As much as I love Apple, Inc, I would happily give up my iPhone to put food on the plates of starving children. Steve Jobs turned his company into a decade long leader in the truly new space of mobile computing. Bill Gates decided to eliminate malaria. Who do you think we should be putting up on a pedestal for our children to emulate?

*While you might disagree with that claim, a quick reference of Google trends shows that since leaving Microsoft, Bill Gates star has dramatically faded — and in 2010 was eclipsed by that of Jobs.

wessel.jpg

Idolize Bill Gates, Not Steve Jobs
Maxwell Wessel
Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:29:40 GMT